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althought this is old thread I felt I needed to post it here. I was astonished to find out the entire iX line of intel desktop cpus lack support for ECC memory. Although it's niche market but when considering workstation or file server build upon pc hardware there is real demand for ECC memory if you run long simulations or other HPC stuff.

It's odd that no-one has noticed this, or if has hasn't bothered to mention it. I chose 555BE for my next workstation CPU just because of this reason. Reply

This came to $647.00 total according to them. Could I swap out the CPU for a Phenom II 550 BE and unlock it? If so is any idea how likely I am to be able to unlock it? A response would be AMAZING as I am not very good at this. Thank you all for your help, Snoopykins Reply

NO it won't! for the simple reason this motherboard doesn't accept ANY 125w CPUs...the phenoms X2s are 80w CPU's and as soon as you unlock the 4 cores it becomes a 125w one....Maybe it will work unlocking a third core but I have no idea how on that boardReply

I wonder if the reason the 910e is so interesting is because, as a high-quality part, it might still overclock well, and the fourth core might also turn out to be available. The low multiplier might be a handicap though.

Even ignoring the overclocking possibilities, though, this would be a good chip for a HTPC, since the low TDP allows for silent cooling, and it has plenty of performance for encoding videos. The fourth core would then be a nice bonus if available.
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I tried this with my new 550BE. It unlocked but it would crash Photoshop and showed flickering issues with BF2. I tried underclocking the cpu and raising voltages with different combinations and nothing worked.

I'm still happy with the X2 550's performance and stability at stock speeds. Shame it dropped $9 a week after my purchase (as did the memory I purchased). Reply

I got an X3 425 and was able to unlock the extra core and the cache. It seemed to work fine but then when I went to start my system the next day I had to hit the power button a couple times to get it to start up so I set it back to default and my system starts up fine. I have not really played around with it much but you can unlock them. Reply

Thanks Anand for a great follow-up article - exactly what I was waiting for.

Looking at the AMD chips, however, it amazes me how much die area is taken up with the L3 cache - and it makes me wonder if it wouldn't be worth AMD making a 6 core cpu without L3, along the lines of the Athlon II X4. It would surely make a killer video encoding cpu - if you compare the Athlon II X4 with the Phenom II X4, video encoding speed is virtually identical clock-for-clock. Reply

"The performance is no different than the regular 125W Phenom II X4 910"

Did you mean to say that the performance is no different than the 95w Phenom II X4 910? Also, I don't think the voltage table should compare the 910e to the 965, but instead, the 910e to the 910, since they are identical CPUs otherwise. Reply

I think your best chances for successfully getting an unlockable chip would be to buy from a high-volume but low stock company (ie NOT Newegg and probably not even ZZF). Someone that does a lot of business so the chips aren't from last year, but just as importantly someone that isn't buying 10,000 at a pop and sitting on them. I don't know how Microcenters distribution chain works (do they have a huge warehouse that purchases in bulk, or is it more region-specific ordering), but they would seem to fit the bill if you're near one. Reply

The Phenom II might prove incredible value for money when unlocked, and you consider it "THE best value for money" if done so, but as far as I'm concerned an L3-cache unlocked Athlon II X4 (if it works, ofcourse) fits the bill just as nicely and you get the added benefit of two extra cores in any case. So for people that can put 4 cores to good use, the Athlon II X4 might be the better buy.

I unlocked my Athlon II X4 620, the full 6MB L3 cache is functional, rock stable and I can run it at 3.6GHz with a very slight voltage bump (and a not-top-of-the-line Xigmatek HDT-S1283 with silent fan). Reply

Well, I don't know the passing rates for the Athlon II X4's versus the Phenom II X2's. If the passing rate of the unlocking of the X4's are really that low, the safest bet would indeed be the Phenom II X2.

Almost surely it was the very first waves of Athlon II X4's could have their L3 cache unlocked. They needed to get a lot of these into the channel when the announcement was made since (unsurprisingly) a $99 quad-core CPU sold like mad out of the gate, and the non-L3 die production was just getting started.

Unfortunately, your chances of buying a new Athlon II X4 that is cache-unlockable today are very low. Reply

I think there were very few unlockable Athlon II X4's out there. I ordered one only a week after it was announced, and I couldn't unlock the L3 cache (on a gigabyte mobo with all of those unlocking options available). The performance is still pretty kick-ass for a 100$ chip without L3 Cache, if you ask me. Reply

i be very unhappy to get an binned Phenom II with its cache off been sold as an Athlon II X4, as the new Athlons II run so cool where as the Phenoms do not (the stock cooler is no good for the Phenoms it needs to be 2x bigger like the Blue Orb II works very well at keeping it at least warm) Reply

Thanks for the tip Anand! I enjoyed reading the article so much that I decided to build my own :-). It came out to less than $200 for the entire system, though I used old memory and storage.
CPU: X2 550 $90.99 (+$5 for NewEgg bundled cooler special)
Motherboard: ASRock A785GMH/128M $69.99
Case: ASUS TM-211 $25.00 (used eBay bucks for $20 worth of the total)

Just google "fry's Phenom X2 II 550"... you'll see. Some mobos support unlocking, some don't but many of us in CPU forums have known this is a greatest deal since November at least even without a Frys combo but with it it makes it insanely sweet. Reply

Yes and no. Not all X4s are likely to work, so there's still a reason to disable some cores and sell this product. The problem then is that they get more demand than they have CPU cores that need to be disabled, so they end up using lower quality functional quad cores to make X2s. Also, I think that AMD and Intel have strictest quality control. What they consider to be a bad core, we may never notice.

It is still revenue either way, just not as much as they possibly could. Also, cheaper quads all around would only hurt AMD's total revenue. I'd guess that this X2 BE probably won't be around long as people start snatching them up. I do enjoy the little bones that AMD throws out there for the enthusiasts. Reply

guys pls help me how to unlock phenom II x2 (3.2ghz) 555 black edition part number hdz555wfk2dgm..its unlockable right??but how will i unlock the hidden cores using msi 880gms-e35 motherboard..pls help..thanks ..my motherboard has a unlock feature but not like ACC advance clock calibration..only "unlock core" setting in the bios,,but then when i started to enable the unlock core setting and save the settings and boot up then after that my cpu cant start booting and turned off by itself.,Reply